The keg had been stashed, forgotten, lost in the stack in the Bull & Bush tank room. Master brewer Gabe Moline had walked past it several times and thought, “Oh, whatever.” The name on the cap was illegible.

When Moline put a tap on it and took a whiff, “I knew right away we had something special.”

The beer – a barleywine brewed way back in 1999 – was named Release the Hounds and went on to become part of Bull & Bush’s epic haul at last weekend’s World Beer Cup awards ceremony in San Diego. The beer won bronze in the aged beer category, one of four medals, two of them gold, taken by little Bull & Bush.

We visited the Glendale institution this week to learn more about the brewery’s success, and the Bull & Bush crew shared some other news: Their much-decorated beers are finally coming to bottles.

“We’ve had so many requests for us to bottle, and we’ve resisted it for so long,” said co-owner Erik Peterson. “We believe beer is better on draft and as close to here as possible.”

“One thing we agree on,” added the brewery’s Jeff McLean, “is we don’t want to go too far. No matter how big we get, we’re never going to leave the state.”

The brewery hasn’t determined which beers will be bottled and is being a little coy about details, probably because they haven’t all been worked out. The beer will not be sold in either 12 ounce or 22 ounce bottles, and may have a “unique shape.” (Guesses, anyone?).

The bottling operation will be installed during a kitchen renovation with the aim of having bottled beer available by this fall’s Great American Beer Festival, Peterson said.

“You can’t put this pub in a bottle,” Moline said. “But it does open up other doors.”

Moline, who like so many other commercial brewers started as a homebrewer, has been at Bull & Bush almost since the beginning, when brewing started in 1997. His passion began with stouts, and he quickly got into barrel-aging beers.

The seven-barrel brewery’s first priority is to make the classics right – and make them drinkable – and then branch out and take some chances. So you will find pilsner, amber ale, ESB, brown ale and stout consistently on the house tap list. And you will see outside-the-box offerings like an Easter beer (an American-style farmhouse ale brewed with whole oranges, grains of paradise and Colorado honey), and a deep, dark saison with 12 different black ingredients ranging from black licorice to black star anise.

“We want to make the very best beer we possibly can,” Peterson said. “I think we make beer we all love. So in a way, we’re the target audience.”

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The Glendale institution

Here’s the rundown of the brewery’s 2012 World Beer Cup medal-winners (the competition is biannual), with some details and comments from Moline:

Man Beer (gold, English-Style India Pale Ale): The brewery’s flagship, “kind of a hybrid” English IPA because it uses American in addition to English hops. Too malty to be considered an American-style IPA.

Turnip the Beets (gold, Field and pumpkin beer): Brewed with beets, beet juice and turnips (just one or two thrown into the barrel). The base style is a Belgian trippel; hot pink foam and very earthy. The same beer won bronze at least year’s Great American Beer Festival, so Moline figures further aging served the beer well.

Release the Hounds (bronze, aged beer): “We’re kind of beer hoarders,” Moline said. Also won silver at last year’s GABF in the aged beer category.

Tower ESB (Extra Special Bitter): A beer that “has been scooping up medals for us for a long time.” Moline believes it might be the winningest ESB in the world. It won gold in both the GABF and WBC in 1998. Balanced between malt and hops, and not as sharp in the hops. Moline uses a lot of varieties of hops … a lot of English, but also cutting in some U.S. hops in there.” Also very big caramel malts.

On June 4, Bull & Bush will be making all four beers available to celebrate its World Beer Cup four-fer, including tapping a free keg of Man Beer at 4 p.m. and selling samples of all four award winners for $4.44.

Moline said while he’s happy with the medals, the beers he thought were most deserving didn’t win. He counts among those previous WBC medal-winner Liquid Brain, an imperial stout aged in American oak whiskey barrels, and Pimp my Rye, aged with rye in a whiskey barrel.

“We know we make good beer and it’s nice to be recognized,” Moline said. “There are so many guys in that room that just want to sniff a bronze medal, and see us going up there every five minutes.”

By the way, the next World Beer Cup, in 2014, will be in Denver. Put it on the calendar.

Gabe, way to go bro! Im so proud of you for chasing your dream and doing what you’ve always loved. Passion and talent are two things one can never buy and you pisess them both! Well done brother! From your broseph Greg Bazemore.

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